NY Times
Moving the Old Fulton Fish Market’s Building
October 21, 2008, 1:43 pm
By Jennifer 8. Lee
A view from the water, showing the side and portions of the back of the Tin Building, as well as the building in relation to the rest of the project.
Updated, 3:45 p.m. | No matter what one thinks of South Street Seaport’s future design, most agree its past deserves respect. Developers and preservationists are now wrangling over a question: Can the past be preserved by moving it?
The proposed relocation of Alexander Hamilton’s 206-year-old home in Harlem was considered successful. But the proposed relocation of the historic home of the Fulton Fish Market, to make way for a new complex at the seaport that includes a 42-story tower, have drawn protests from preservationists.
It’s a critical debate that lands in front of the Landmarks Preservation Commission around 3 p.m. today.
If the commission does not sign off on the relocation, much of the proposed redesign by General Growth Properties will be hampered (although not the plans for the 42-story building, which is planned for just outside the historic district).
The Tin Building, which was originally built in 1907, was long the home to the bustling Fulton Fish Market, which had come into existence in the 19th century.
But the building has sat as an unused shell since the fishmongers departed for Hunts Point (and more modern facilities) in the Bronx in 2005 (though much of the history in its old home had been well-documented).
Designed by the Berlin Construction Company, the Tin Building was given its name in part because of its orange-painted aluminum siding on the three floors above the concrete ground floor, where the wholesalers received their supplies and sold their wares.
The building was originally placed between two piers, so that the wholesale fish could be delivered by boat. But once fish arrived by truck, the space between the two piers was filled in and the Pier 17 mall was plopped onto that land. Now the developers want to raze the mall and move the Tin Building to the end of that pier, to make room for other buildings.
The Historic Districts Council argues that buildings within historic districts gain their meaning through their relationship with other structures, and, “Putting the Tin Building alone on the edge of a pier is not putting it into context.”
The developers argue otherwise: that in fact, putting it on the pier puts it more into context. They argue it was originally built on the water, but in the last century it has been hemmed in by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive viaduct to the west and the Pier 17 shopping mall to the east, among other structures.
“There are buildings on four sides of it, whereas it sat historically as a waterfront building with a large plaza in front of it,” said Gregg Pasquarelli, a partner at SHoP Architects, which is handling the redesign for the entire South Street Seaport. “Its context is gone, and the understanding of this building as a waterfront building has been gone for three decades.” He argued that it had other benefits, too, such as clearing the way for an esplanade along the water, like the one that runs long the Hudson River.
“What we are doing is we are moving it to reinstate its position as a waterfront building,” Mr. Pasquarelli said, “giving it views in all four directions, allowing it to be seen in all four directions for the first time in four decades, and placing a large open public space in front of it, just like they day it opened in 1907.”
But preservationists oppose much of the plan in general (especially the 42-story building), and have been focusing their dissatisfaction on the Tin Building. “It has been historically a waterfront building, but it wasn’t stuck out at the end of the pier,” said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of Historic Districts Council. “We feel like it separates the historic building from its environment.”
The building would most likely be revived into a use related to food — perhaps a banquet hall, restaurants or markets — said Michael McNaughton, a vice president for General Growth Properties, a real estate company which has had some financial struggles of late. The food theme is a nod to the Tin Building’s historic past, he said. “It has been feeding New Yorkers for decades.” (We think this is a bit of a logical stretch.)
The Tin Building, while situated in a historic district, is not itself historic. And it suffered great damage when a suspicious fire swept through it in 1995, disrupting the lives of 400 employees and uprooting seven major wholesale vendors who sell $350 million in seafood every year. The fire came on the heels of several attempts by government to purge the fish market, because for decades, the Tin Building had served as a shadowy world for Mafia gangsters who thrived on extortion, fraud, no-show jobs, loan sharking, money laundering and gambling rackets, investigators said. It was rebuilt shortly thereafter, but with fiberglass cornices instead of metal ones. So for all the fuss, it turns out that very little of the Tin Building today is actually original.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company